A Great Local Place (Gold Coast Railroad Museum)

I decided to check out a new local place.  Each time the family and I took a trip to the Miami Metro Zoo I had seen a sign for the Gold Coast Railroad Museum.  I didn't pay much attention to the place because I figured it was just a small walkthrough museum.  There is this really cool iPad app (FREE) out there called Stuck on Earth.  You really need to check it out if you haven't.  It lets you check out local places and see photos from that place.  That is when I really got interested in the Railroad Museum.

So, this past Saturday we (the family) journeyed to the museum.  To say the least I was impressed.  There is so much history stored away for you to see and interact with.  Besides, being a guy it was AWESOME to set foot on the massive pieces of mobile metal!!!!!

The clouds were out in full force which gave me the idea to do some HDR shots.  The first photograph is my favorite of the bunch with the dramatic clouds in the background and the old rusted hunk of metal in front.  The second shot was of a very old steam engine which had to be done in black and white of course.  Lastly, I just couldn't pass up the leading lines down the side of passenger cars.  All and all it was a great trip and I was not even there that long.  The next time I will plan for some addition time!

Fruit and Spice Park (Homestead, FL)

I have lived in Florida for almost 7 years now.  Today my wife and I decided to try out the fruit and spice park that is within 10min of where we live.  I am amazed to have lived next to such a photographer's paradise for so long and not known that it was here.  There is something to be said about your own "back yard".  I see my self spending a good bit of time there throughout the year now.  We had a great time and despite the fact that we were there in the worst possible light I did come away with a few keepers.  I also found out that bamboo looks really cool in black and white!!!!!

HDR is not Just for Color

HDR photography has been around for some time now. If you are a photographer chances are you fall in one of three places.

1. You hate it in all of its forms

2. You are okay with the HDR that is close to “natural” looking (this is where I fall)

3. You love it in all of its forms

This is not an HDR hate/like post and you can check out a detailed post I did on HDR here. This is about another aspect you may not have thought about. Sometimes the issues I have with HDR is the amount of color saturation you get when you merge all the images. I generally pull the saturation and vibrancy back in my HDR images to “tone it down”. This time around however I took it all the way down. HDR is not just for color images. Pulling out the dynamic range for images and then converting them to black and white can have a very dramatic effect, especially on any large “puffy” clouds. The next time you are processing some HDR images consider them for black and white just to see what you can come up with.

Working a Subject

Often times when I go out for a fun day with my camera I find a single subject that catches my attention.  Ages ago I would set up a shot that I thought was good and take a couple of exposures.  Then, I would pick up and move along.  Now days though I tend to want to work the one subject just to see the different looks I can produce.  That extends to post processing as well.  I create several "virtual copies" in Lightroom and try different settings to see what happens.  I might even move it over to Photoshop and try working with some layers.  Sometimes all of this works and sometimes it doesn't.  I recently went to South Beach for some sunrise fun.  I wasn't overly excited about the photos I was getting in the beginning and so I became interested in the lifeguard stand that was next to me.  I worked it from many angles and took multiple exposures so that I could do some HDR work on them in post.  Take a look and let me know what you think.  Remember, don't just run up, take a shot, and run away.  There are many ways to explore a single subject.